I. Field of the Invention
the present invention relates to mounting pedestals for utilities, and more particularly, to a mounting pedestal for the compact and safe mounting of an electrical meter, an electrical power box, a telephone junction box, a television jack, a water cyclometer or meter, and a gas meter, for conveniently furnishing such utilities to a mobile home or other facility.
II. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, utilities such as electrical power, telephone service, cable television service, water and gas have been provided to mobile homes and other facilities through separate lines and conduits leading from individual meters and junction boxes. These utility meters and junction boxes were often supported in the vicinity of the mobile home but placed at separate loctions, each location being selected by the particular company supplying each utility. In mobile home parks, if there were no conveniently located tree or utility pole near the mobile home, each utility company often drove a post into the ground to support its particular meter or junction box for servicing one or more nearby mobile homes. For convenience, sometimes the meters or junction boxes for a large number of mobile homes were centrally located, often at a single spot. This resulted in a tangle of utility wires and pipes which was both visually displeasing and inconvenient to connect or disconnect upon installation or removal of a particular mobile home from its site. Especially when centrally located meters were employed, if deactuation of the utility supplies was necessary (such as in the cause of fire or other disaster) such deactuation was delayed due to the remoteness of the meters from the mobile homesite requiring deactuation.
My earlier mounting pedestal for utilities, U.S. Pat. No. Re. 31,359, granted Aug. 23, 1983, solved these and other problems relating to utility pedestals. However, my prior device did not address the problems of the expense of producing a unitary, grounded utility pedestal; the relatively short useful life of a metal pedestal, due to rusting, electrolytic corrosion or the like; and potential shorting of the electrical supply and the subsequent electrification of the pedestal if the power supply cable happens to rub against and be breached by the open bottom end of the post during installation, settling, tippage or the like.